


Gravity

by SingingShantiesAllTheWay



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Non-Sexual Bondage, Rope Bondage, Suspension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27502570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingShantiesAllTheWay/pseuds/SingingShantiesAllTheWay
Summary: Sasha can't sleep. There is a ritual for nights like this, when her thoughts are just too much and she can't climb out of her own head.Sasha can't sleep, and so she asks Wilde for a favour.
Relationships: Sasha Racket & Oscar Wilde
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30





	Gravity

It was quiet in the garden, at night. Wilde closed his eyes and listened, indulging in a few moments of soaking in the music that evening brought: the soft, high chirp of tree frogs, a gentle soughing of breeze now and then; the whistling whirr of air through feathers as birds flitted overhead, seeking their roosts. He let himself settle, let himself listen, and in the solitude, he heard everything.

"So, uh. Wilde. C'n I - ask a favour?"

Wilde's eyes snapped open. Not everything, apparently.

"Can't sleep," Sasha muttered as she drew up beside him. It was all she said, but Wilde understood the subtext nonetheless. This was a ritual - not a frequent one, but one well-established, with its own rules and its own expectations.

She wouldn't look at him, wouldn't meet his gaze. Wilde didn't try to make her. He didn't immediately answer, either - not out of indecision, but from experience giving her a moment or two to change her mind, to flee before committing. Tonight, she stayed, and Wilde glanced at her sidelong, answered her just as quietly.

"Did you bring it along?"

Sasha nodded, and uncrossed her arms to hold out a coil of strong, soft-woven rope. Gently, Wilde took it from her and draped it over his shoulder.

"Then yes," he told her. "You can ask a favour. You can _always_ ask this favour, Sasha. Come along. Let us find a suitable place."

In truth, Wilde already had a very good idea where he would take her tonight. They never used the same place twice - infrequent as Sasha's requests were, it was still an unspoken rule: this would never be routine. Never habit. Each time, a brand new exploration of Sasha's needs and Wilde's careful attention. After the first time she'd asked - staring at the floor, unable to articulate what she wanted, trying to ask for something she didn't have a name for - Wilde had spent a considerable amount of time exploring the grounds, taking note of likely locations in case they would ever be needed.

Tonight, he led her along the stream that bisected the property, listening to the croak and splash of frogs, disturbed by their passing, into the gentle rill of water. There was, he knew, nearly at the edge of the grounds, a broad-limbed and sturdy oak, widespread branches shading the streamlet and the bank. It was, Wilde felt, perfect for their needs, and he headed for it unerringly.

He didn't look to see if Sasha was following. He knew she was. (Orpheus had been an idiot; Wilde would have kept his Eurydice.)

The moon wasn't quite full yet - waxing, yes, gravid but not yet full- but it was bright enough to see by without having to resort to magic or a lantern. Silver-white gleamed through the tree’s branches onto the rippling water of the stream and shone through leaves onto the mossy ground of the bank, and Wilde touched a hand to the rough-barked bole. He tipped his head back to look up at the bottommost branches, examining thickness and angle and potential strength. Sasha stood a few feet behind him, silent. Waiting.

Wilde turned, having selected the branch he wanted, took the step or two to close the distance between them, and looked down at Sasha, scrutinising her face for any hint of doubt or uncertainty. To his relief, he found none: nervousness, yes, but that was always the case, nerves that made her fidgety and restless rather than afraid.

"I won't let you drop," he told her softly. "I won't let you fall. In any sense. Are you ready?"

Sasha drew a deep breath and let it out, and tipped her head to peer up at his face; Wilde was pleased to see trust there, genuine and uncompromised. She nodded, and Wilde gave her a small, warm smile, ignoring the tight tug at the corner of his mouth. Sasha didn't care about the twist that the scar made there, he knew. It didn't matter.

He stepped back, out of arms' reach, and said to her simply and gently, "Good. Strip."

Wilde watched the shiver, knew it was coming. It started at the back of Sasha's neck and traveled down her shoulders, her back, straight down her body to the ground. It shook her like a dog with a rat and left her ...looser, a little, in its wake.

It had been that shiver that had finally clued him in, that first time, to what she needed ('Sasha, look at me,' he'd told her, and she'd _stopped_ : stopped moving; stopped breathing; stopped trying to speak; stopped everything except staring wide-eyed at Wilde, and then the shiver had run riot over her skinny body and he _knew_ -), and it was the first step into the quiet space that Sasha needed, on the occasional nights that saw them enacting this private rite.

Sasha didn't answer him, not in words, but nimbly and swiftly skinned out of her practical, dusty-black clothing. She didn't bother to fold any of it; left it all piled up, rumpled and haphazard, on the mossy ground. Wilde watched her for a moment when she began and then, satisfied she was easing without obstacle onto the first steps of her pathway, began uncoiling the rope slung over his shoulder.

"Come here," he told her quietly when Sasha had finished undressing. She shivered again, another full-body tremor that once more left her just that much less tense. Less fraught. And again, she didn't answer him, but stepped closer, stopped when she was within reach.

"Arms up. Together, in front of you."

Sasha lifted her arms as directed. Wilde wound the rope around her forearms, binding them together, knotted at her elbows and wrists, and tossed the loose remaining length of it over the sturdy branch above them.

"Tiptoe," he told her; Sasha obeyed, and Wilde tightened the rope over the branch, first removing all the slack, and then pulling it gradually taut until Sasha was supported by the rope and the knots and the ladder-braid around her upraised arms.

Wilde smiled at her. "Good," he said, and watched another shiver cascade over her skin.

He paused there, examining Sasha's posture, the tension in her muscles, the pace of her breathing, the expression she wore. "Give me a colour?" he asked quietly, and waited for Sasha to parse the question, draw a breath, give him an answer.

"...green," she finally said, and Wilde made sure she could see his answering smile. "Good," he told her again, and bent to lift one of her legs, leaving her balanced on one foot, toes stretched to just touch the ground. Sasha let him position her, let him bend her leg, bring her thigh up to nearly touch her torso; let him wind the rope around her knee, around her ankle, suspending her, limber and pliant, from the strong and supportive arm of the oak.

"Still green?" he whispered when he had secured the last of these knots, tested them to be sure they would hold. They would; Wilde knew they would, he had tied these a thousand times for far more people than Sasha, most of them far less beloved. His knots were always good, but for her they were doubly careful, doubly secure. _I won't let you drop_ , he'd told her; _I won't let you fall_ , and Wilde kept his promises.

Sasha nodded again. The shiver was quieter now, a gentler thing than the devouring tremors that had come before, and Wilde hummed to see it, gave her the sound of his approbation and calm certainty to anchor her centre while around it the rest of her drifted, almost afloat.

"Good," Wilde told her. "Very good, Sasha. Close now. Are you ready?"

Once again, Sasha nodded. Wilde leaned to press a chaste kiss to her brow, then bent to run his fingertips down her thigh to her calf, to her ankle - another point of grounding for her, rather than anything at all prurient, the guiding line of his touch ensuring she knew when he would lift her, knew when the weight of her body was no longer hers to bear, knew when she could finally, completely let-

-go-

...and just...

...float...

...just let ...go...

and let

Wilde

be her gravity

**Author's Note:**

> It's an odd place to end, I know, but anyone who's experienced this sort of quiet space will know that it's very much like that: a drifting into something a bit timeless where _narrative_ has little say in how the world spins past you.
> 
> There may be another chapter later to bring narrative back on line; we'll see how whim takes us, I suppose.


End file.
